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A Narrative History of The People of Iowa

 

ARTHUR E. GOSHORN.  One of the veteran newspaper editors of Iowa, Arthur E. Goshorn, has been publisher of the Winterset News for more than four decades, during which long period he has been a strong factor in the development and growth of his community.  From modest beginnings this newspaper has grown in circulation and public favor into one of the leading country newspapers of the state, and Mr. Goshorn has always conducted it along lines of permanent constructiveness and moral, civic and educational advancement.

Mr. Goshorn is purely a product of the community in which he resides and where he is held in such confidence.  He was born at Winterset, September 18, 1858, and is a son of John S. and Hettie Jane (Stiffler) Goshorn.  His grandfather, Robert Goshorn, was a resident of Pennsylvania, from which state he enlisted for service during the War of 1812. John S. Goshorn was born in Pennsylvania; where he was married, and in 1852 moved to Morning Sun, Iowa, where he engaged in teaching school.  In 1855 he came to Winterset, where he continued to be both a public and private school teacher, and eventually became county superintendent of schools. In 1861 he enlisted in the Union army for service during the war between the states, and upon the formation of Company F, Fourth Iowa Infantry, was chosen as second lieutenant.  He conducted himself with great gallantry in the numerous engagements in which he took part, and was promoted captain of Company E, Forty-seventh Iowa Infantry, with which he served until the close of the war.  At that time he returned to Winterset and resumed teaching school, which vocation he followed for two years, following which he was appointed adjuster of the Farmers Insurance Company of Cedar Rapids.  In 1889 he moved to Hebron, Nebraska, where he became secretary of a fire insurance company of Lincoln, and resided at Hebron until his death, when his body was brought back to Winterset for interment.  Mrs. Goshorn, who was also a native of Pennsylvania, died in 1882, at the age of forty-eight years, and was buried at Winterset.

Arthur E. Goshorn was given excellent educational advantages for his day, and after graduating from the high school at Winterset entered the University of Iowa, from which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1880, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy.  During the four years that he attended that institution he was not only an excellent student, but was an athletic star as well, being catcher for the university team for the entire period and still being in possession of one of the few and oldest sweaters issued by that institution to its athletes.  Following his graduation Mr. Goshorn took up the vocation of teaching at Winterset, where he became principal of the old South Ward School, but in 1884 turned his attention to newspaper work and for four years was the publisher of a newspaper at Pierce, Nebraska.  In 1888 he again returned to Winterset and took over the Winterset News, of which paper he is still the owner, publisher and editor, and which now has one of the largest circulations of any country newspaper in the state.  During his forty-seven years of newspaper life Mr. Goshorn has formed a wide acquaintance among journalists, among whom he is asteemed for his ability, native courtesy and general friendliness.  He is a member of the Iowa State Editorial Association and the National Editorial Association, a fellow of the Iowa Academy of Science and a member of the Association for the advancement of Science.  He is a member of the Masonic Blue Lodge.  Mr. Goshorn has always taken an intelligent and active interest in public affairs, and may civic movements have been either fathered or benefited by him.

While at the university Mr. Goshorn was an ardent student of geology, under Dr. Samuel Calvin, collecting many fossils for him from the Missouri series which are now included in the university's exhibit.  Mr. Goshorn has always retained his interest in geology and is the collector and owner of probably the most complete collection in Iowa of fossils from the Missouri series.  He was a pioneer in state conservation work and was three years vice president of the Iowa State Conservation Society.  He is president of the Madison County chapter of the Izaak Walton League.  During Wilson's administration he was appointed postmaster at Winterset and served almost nine years.

In 1883 Mr. Goshorn was united in marriage with Miss Kate Shriver, who was born at Winterset and is a graduate of the local high school, and to this union there have been born the following children:  Mabel, Mrs. Horace Tate, of Winterset; Robert C., one of the proprietors of the Jefferson City (Missouri) Tribune-Post newspaper, and a veteran of the World war, in which he held a first lieutenant's commission and was on detached duty, who married Lenore Rhyno and has one daughter, Betty Jean; Katherine, the wife of John Wintrode, a veteran of the World war, in which he held the rank of first sergeant, and now resides at Saint Petersburg, Florida; and Martha J., a teacher in the public schools of Jefferson City, Missouri, and a graduate of the high school at Winterset.  All four children attended their father's alma mater, Mrs. Wintrode receiving her B. A. degree there in 1919.  The first wife of Mr. Goshorn died in 1911, and in 1914 Mr. Goshorn was united in marriage with Miss Gertrude Rhodes, of Grinnell, Iowa.  They are the parents of one son, Arthur E., who is now a student in the Winterset public schools.

 

~ source: A Narrative History of The People of Iowa with SPECIAL TREATMENT OF THEIR CHIEF ENTERPRISES IN EDUCATION, RELIGION, VALOR, INDUSTRY, BUSINESS, ETC., by EDGAR RUBEY HARLAN, LL. B., A. M. Curator of the Historical, Memorial and Art Department of Iowa Volume IV THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Inc. Chicago and New York. 1931
~ transcribe by Debbie Clough Gerischer for the Great War http://iagenweb.org/history/